GLASGOW Warriors may need another four or even five performances as good as last week’s one against Leicester if they are to reach the quarter-finals of the Champions Cup for the first time. That was the warning last night from joint-captain Henry Pyrgos as the squad set out for Limerick, where they will play their second Pool One match tomorrow lunchtime.

“We’ve had one good performance last week: we’ve got to back it up,” said Pyrgos, who was one of the team’s outstanding members in last Friday’s 42-13 win over the Tigers at Scotstoun. “Our first goal is to do that week on week and get through the group, and if we can get through the group then we can take it from there. But at the moment it’s Munster this weekend and that’s our main focus.”

Glasgow have become regular qualifiers for the knockout stages of the PRO12, and won the competition two seasons ago, but they have yet to reach the last eight of the Champions Cup, never mind getting close to the final. But rather than simply suggesting that his team were therefore somehow more consistent in the league than in the cup, Pyrgos pointed out that the overall higher standard in Europe means that mistakes are punished more severely.

“You’re playing the best 20 teams in Europe. In the league sometimes you make errors, you make poor decisions, you don’t get punished for them. In Europe you get punished every time.

“You give cheap penalties away; goal-kickers are going to kick them in Europe. They’re going to go to the corner, drive lineouts, score tries. Mistakes turn into seven points more often than not in Europe and that makes it difficult.

“You can have a bad start to the season and you can build on it and still make it into the top four [in the PRO12], whereas in Europe you lose one or two games and that’s you struggling.”

The match against Munster is sure to be an emotional occasion following the death last Sunday of Anthony Foley, the Irish province’s head coach. Tomorrow’s match will be Munster’s first since that tragic event, and so will be played in highly unusual circumstances. But Pyrgos explained that his squad has prepared in pretty much the same way that they did before the Tigers match.

“It’s been a lot of work from guys who have been injured and coaches who have been preparing us, getting analysis done and trying to work out the small details.

“It’s one thing doing all that stuff, but you’ve got to make sure you go out and perform. In any rugby game, the basics of the game are the most important things and we’ve got to make sure we turn up in those areas and the other stuff will come hopefully.

“We're just focusing on the game and expecting a huge performance from Munster. I've never experienced something like this before, but you compare it to other big games you've been involved in - internationals and European games when there are a lot of distractions going on. I'm not saying it's the same as this. But it's a huge game and as players all we can do is focus on our individual jobs.

“We've had a good week in training, concentrating on little details, and we have to make sure we continue that. That's all we can do.”